


Everything By Its Right Name

by simplesetgo



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/M, Plot What Plot, feelings!Cara, leftout!Kahlan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:12:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplesetgo/pseuds/simplesetgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard and Cara share a blanket in the cold. Things get really cozy from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything By Its Right Name

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [PBXII](http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/40106.html), prompt _Richard/Cara, blanket_
> 
> I pretty much transplanted the R/C ~blanket scene~ from 1x22 Reckoning to some vague point in S2. Then I changed Richard's response to Cara's offer. A little bit.

For once, they are not on cold, hard ground. A kindly farmer offered them the use of his home. Kahlan and Zedd sleep inside where it’s warm, by order of the Seeker, while Cara and Richard are in the barn. Up in the loft, their bedrolls nestled into the mounds of loose hay, Cara sighs. It may not be hard, but it’s still cold. “We’re wasting heat,” she says. There’s a guttering lamp hanging on the beam above them, throwing feeble light onto Richard’s guarded expression. He doesn’t say anything. So Cara clears her throat, raising herself up a bit. The fur blanket falls away, revealing her bare shoulder. “Try not to be an idiot.”

With a raise of his brow, Richard shifts and lays beside her. They settle close together, gazing up. Richard folds his arms behind his head and, for no real reason, Cara rests her own head on his bicep. “Why are you out here with me?” Richard wonders. “There was enough room inside for you, at least.”

Cara smirks. “I could hardly leave you alone all night. You would get dreadfully lonely. Besides, I noticed you haven’t exactly ordered me away.”

Richard shifts a bit under the blanket. His hand, when it brushes her bare belly, shrinks back like it was stung. He swallows thickly. The reaction brings to the forefront one of her most intense vexations: Richard forcing down part of that which makes him a man. “Has it occurred to you,” she says abruptly, bringing her hand to his face, “that with the world usually about to end for one reason or another, you may never find a way to be with her?”

She’s met with silence, just steady breathing, and lifts an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, Seeker. I promise not to tell your legions of admirers that you admitted to a doubt.”

Cara notices Richard’s eyes, dark and soft, are searching her own like he’s begging for her to finally say it, out loud, just once. So she does; slowly, measuredly. “You are a man, Richard, and I am a woman. We are alone here, together, until morning.”

She stops there; like so many other things she holds her tongue for, she doesn’t say how much it irks her, frustrates her on his behalf, that her Lord Rahl is self-celibate. She doesn’t tell him that he’s not being fair to himself, that holding to a vow for the sake of it doesn’t even make _sense_. On the other hand, she knows she doesn’t need to tell him that he could very well be facing a lifetime alone, no matter how close Kahlan is to him. She cares about Richard far too much to—

“You care for me,” Richard says suddenly.

It catches her off guard; that sudden assumption, the vocalization of her most-guarded secret. So much so that she almost shifts away to put distance between them. Richard senses it, the tense in her muscles, the way she looks down, and he brings his thumb to her chin. His touch grounds her and all thoughts of running vanish. “No one’s saying anything about love,” he says.

“Then what _do_ you want me to say?” Cara growls. “You’re the Lord Rahl. Of course I—”

The thumb presses to her lips, silencing her. Cara huffs. “I thought I was a man,” Richard reminds her, “and you were a woman.”

At a different time, she would welcome the game. She would sharpen her words on his like a blade on a whetstone until he gave up, like always. But they’re so close, like this, her lips inches from his. So she mutters, “Fine, I care a little,” just to get it over with, and when his hand moves to cup her jaw, she kisses him, hard.

The thick blanket billows up as motion explodes underneath. Richard’s mouth is hot; she sucks on his tongue, keeping her mouth pressed to his even as her hands join his in rapidly stripping clothing from him. They break apart with panting breaths and he sits up to tear his shirt off, and then he rolls, taking her with him; his weight is warm and solid as he settles over her, skin to skin. Her brow furrows when she looks up at him, messed hair and wide eyes and all. Before thoughts can take hold, no matter what they might be, she pulls his head down to her chest. It's the first time they've done this, but somehow it doesn't feel like it.

A strong hand cups her breast, a warm mouth closes around her nipple, and Cara lets her body relax, relishing the familiar quickening of her heart and warming of her skin. Her hand combs through his hair, an affectionate gesture as he elicits spark after spark of pleasure, and Richard breathes her name between the swells of her breasts. And with that, Cara realizes that this really is about the two of them; about Richard and Cara and no one else. It makes something surge through her entire body, stronger than relief, and she suddenly wants this that much more. “Richard,” she says quietly, with a gentle smirk, and he hums as he tugs her nipple between his teeth. “You are aware that my body has more to offer you than breasts?”

She sees him smile, at once rueful and appreciative. Then his hand is venturing exactly where she wants it, and Keeper take him—he is good at this. It’s not long before her body is wet for him, and wanting him, needing him, and it’s been a great while since Cara has felt like this. She pulls and tugs at Richard; he shifts against her. She can feel the incredible hardness, the full length of him as it brushes against her thigh. It’s a moment’s pause, there in the near-darkness, and Cara realizes she’s clutching at the muscles in his back, fingers digging and biting at his skin in expectation. Then his head is falling to kiss at her neck as he eases inside her, and Cara moans, her mouth falling open.

“Richard,” she says, for no real reason, and he grunts softly as he fills her. She holds her breath for a moment, savoring the ample size of him, and grins for the smallest moment before loosing a very controlled, very guttural moan right into his ear. He hisses, and thrusts—hard, deep into her, breath hot on her neck. Cara smiles to herself, arches up with her hips, wraps legs around his thighs. He sets a pace as Cara’s hands skate over his back, feeling the muscle and skin that she’s seen so many times but never touched, not in this way—not when that muscle was bunching and cording with the exertion of sex.

Cara swallows, closes her eyes, lets the pulses of pleasure seep into her body, soak into her mind. So many times she’s lain beneath the stars and needed this: to be a woman first and foremost, to take and give pleasure with another. Shes found it now and then: a frenzied coupling in the dead of one night or another. Against the outside wall of some darkened building, bent over and chanting, “harder, harder”. In a cheap bed with a barmaid or two, making the springs creak and sweat trickle. But somehow, for Cara, there is only this moment; somehow, comparisons are the farthest thing from her mind.

Because she knows that Richard is telling her with every rough thrust, with every rough breath against her, with every rough kiss to her mouth, to her shoulder, to her breast, that he cares for her. And Cara can’t find it in herself to be even a little irked at the meddlesome emotion invading her sex.

“Is this,” Richard whispers, and Cara clamps her mouth shut, realizing little breathless moans have been escaping unimpeded. “Are you…”

He sounds uncertain, unsure, and even slows his pace a little. Cara cups his neck and kisses him, with not a little tongue, and says, “This is sex, Richard, it’s not exactly complicated.”

“I know,” he says, “but you’re Mord-Sith.”

It’s not until then that Cara remembers she should be on top. She should be fucking him like it was a punishment, riding his cock until her ass blazed from smacking down on his hips, until her thighs burned. And he would love it. All men did. She feels lost for a moment, debating; her gaze flicks to the rucksack holding her red leathers, resting innocently on a bale of hay. “Mostly,” she says decisively. “I’m mostly Mord-Sith.”

Richard cocks his head down at her, like a hunting dog listening for a rustle in the leaves. She explains by pushing up, rolling them onto their sides: a compromise. Blanket thrown, they’re entwined, hands at each other’s backs, legs tangled, and their movements together are a joint effort, now. Cara marvels at the feel of Richard’s body against her own like this: the damp heat, the solid muscle, the warm scent, the gliding friction of her lover inside her. Cara’s sex is milking him; the slow rise of pleasure is sharpening for the both of them. She feels thrusts increasingly erratic, a flash of heat across his skin, how he’s breathing through clenched teeth white in the lamplight. His hand drags down her back, to the curve of her hips, and then he’s clutching at her ass as he fucks into her furiously, a result of that primal instinct to go faster and deeper. “It’s a pity you’re about to come,” Cara says, voice low and throaty. “You can have me there, if you want.” She reaches down, behind her, and palms the back of his hand, meshes her fingers with his.

The clear implication makes Richard groan, turns his fingers into tightening claws as they dig into the soft flesh of her backside. With a feral grin Cara works her own hips harder, stronger, and their skin chafes where it’s not slicked with sweat. She feels it coming, her release; it’s hidden in that loud carnal rhythm they’re forming together. Hand to his hip, she presses her body forward to his. He rolls loosely onto his back and Cara is pulled over him. He kisses her, and his tongue on hers makes Cara’s body arch, makes her hips drive down and grind against him. Suddenly, Richard stops breathing. There’s a noise from the back of his throat, almost a whine, and then Cara feels it: a hot gush, a fierce pulsing in her sex. She knew it was coming but it still blindsides her—bliss is crashing down on her that could drown the most harshly wielded Agiel. Cara bites down hard on her lip and the impulse to scream out her pleasure is stronger than usual; she barely holds it back. Instead she lets her sex spasm in silence, enjoying the deep throbs of pleasure, enjoying the last of Richard’s thrusts and then the way he stills inside her.

When he grins up at her for a second it’s a natural thing, the smile she sees all the time on him. He kisses her and relaxes back. Cara slowly arches up, letting him slip free of her, and can’t resist rubbing her sex along the length of his cock where it rests against his belly: a parting grab for pleasure, making this last that much longer. She smirks down at him like she’s just beat him in a fight—maybe she has, in a way—but she’s looked down this way at countless lovers, and something needs to be different here. She kisses him on the corner of his mouth, rests her cheek against his stubbled one, just for a moment, and then rolls away and off of him, back to her own bedroll.

It’s Richard that covers them both with the discarded blanket: the air is chilly and the heat of sex is quick to dissipate. “Next time,” Cara says, folding her arms under her head, “I’ll pretend to be completely Mord-Sith for you.”

“And what would that mean?” asks Richard.

She turns a little to see interest in dark brown eyes. Cara grins. “I’d be heartless, and cruel, and I would fuck you so hard you’d likely faint. I doubt you could handle it.”

Richard doesn’t pause, and his brow lifts as he smiles. “Or maybe, next time, I’ll pretend to be your Lord Rahl and order you to lay under my gentle lovemaking.”

Cara makes a face. “If you insist.”

“I won’t,” he laughs. “I’m content with me being Richard and you being Cara.”


End file.
